ABSTRACT
The primary objective of this chapter is to offer a new way of understanding the creative processes of multidisciplinary groups, whose work is to generate innovative ideas. The chapter reports from a project focused on organisational creativity at the group level, investigating what characterised such creative processes in that context. This project used ethnography as a qualitative method, including participant observation, focus group interviews, and individual qualitative interviews. Furthermore, an inductive approach was used to analyse the data. Findings showed that when group members from different disciplines collaborated on innovative idea generation, the creative processes were characterised by a multivoiced stimulation of fantasy. In this chapter, we first discuss how imagination involved new ways of combining knowledge and ideas based on one’s own and others’ experiences, including the use of technological tools. Secondly, we discuss how imagination was ignited by diversity and tension. Thirdly, we elaborate on the importance of emotion and support for the drive and stimulation of imagination in groups. Finally, we sum up the discussion by presenting a model based on the concept of Polyphonic Imagination, in order to visualise the characteristics of the creative processes. We propose this concept of Polyphonic Imagination, derived from the empirical data, to designate the ways in which different perspectives in the groups created tensions which fed into the group members’ imaginations whenever these perspectives acknowledged each other.
